Leonardo Da Vinci Programme
Lifelong Learning
Programme 2007-2013
F- MU.S.EU.M. Project
Responsible author:
EURO INNOVANET (Rome)
Co-authors:
Printed on: 04/03/2008
To: F- MU.S.EU.M. Consortium
The F- MU.S.EU.M Consortium:
1. EURO INNOVANET SRL, Rome, Italy
2. Cultura Animi Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria
3. Regional History Museum “Academician Jordan Ivanov”, Kyustenil, Bulgaria
4. Musei Civici di Pitigliano (Museo Civico Archeologico Della Civiltà Etrusca, Museo
Archeologico all’aperto “A. Manzi”), Italy
5. TRUST Tecnologie e Risorse Umane per Sviluppo e Trasferimento, Rome, Italy
6. City Of Rome - Dept. XIV for Local Development, Training and Employment Policies,
Rome, Italy
7. Universitatea Lucian Blaga Sibiu- Ipcte, Sibiu, Romania
8. Banat Museum, Timisoara, Romania
Status
[ ] Draft
[ X ] Deliverable
[ ] Report
Project ID: LLP-LDV/TOI/07/IT/016
Deliverable ID
Work-package Number: 2
Title
Confidentiality
[ ] Public – for public use
[ ] IST – for IST programme participants only
[ ] Restricted – MU.S.EU.M consortium & PO only
BUILDING A EUROPEAN VIRTUAL
MUSEUM. A SWOT ANALYSIS OF NINE
MUSEUM
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Section Content
Executive Summary
Methodological introduction
SWOT analysis of nine European Museums
Partner Museums
The Regional Hostory Museum “Academician Jornda
Ivanov“, Kyustendil
The Civic Museums of Pitigliano
The Banat Museum, Timisoara
Beneficiary Museums
The Regional Museum of History, Veliko Tarnovo
The Ruse Regional Museum
The Fiora Valley Prehistory and protohistory Museum,
Manciano
The F. R. Vonwiller Civic Museum of Farnese
The Brukenthal National Museum of Dacian and Roman
Civilization
The Deva Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization
CONCLUSIONS
APPENDIX
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This Report analyses the questionnaires received from nine Museums participating in the
F.MU.S.EU.M. project, with the aim of pointing out their ability to migrate to a Virtual
Museum; the results of this analysis is also the basis for planning specific actions to help them in creating a good virtual product.
The analysis of the data received by the partner museums has been done through the
SWOT method, in order to point out Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of any participating Museum.
Particular attention was given to the professional roles employed, at the moment of the survey, in the Museums: as a previous research report documented, in fact, several professional roles are of capital importance for the possibility to migrate to a Virtual Model of Museum, like the Web Designer, the E-learning Expert, the Communication Expert, the
Content Expert, the Web Manager, the Project Manager as well as other relevant professional profiles.
The questionnaires collected aimed also to point out the presence of ICTs, management and educational skills in the Museums as well as the potentialities of the staff in being trained for the elaboration, the management and the maintenance of a Virtual Museum.
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This report has the aim of examining the questionnaires received from nine European
Museums, three partner museums –The Regional History Museum of Kyustendil, The
Banat Museum, The Civic Museums of Pitigliano- and six beneficiary Museums - The
Regional Museum of History of Veliko Tarnovo, The Ruse Regional Museum, The Civic
Museum of Farnese, The Fiora Valley Prehistory and Protohistory Museum of Manciano, the Brukenthal Museum, The Deva Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization.
The data coming from the survey has been elaborated pointing out the following:
 Background of the museums (short presentation of the participating museums, annual budget and turnover, number of visitors, staff employed, collections, etc.)
 Strengths and weaknesses noticed by the analysis of the data received, as well as opportunities and threats
The answers to the questions (which is possible to see in detail in the Appendix of this work) have been analyzed with to a simple SWOT analysis tool, aiming to point out strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to the participating museums.
The SWOT analysis was chosen as a route into pilot and business planning, providing a snapshot of internal and external structures, roles and relationships and inviting decisions on a route map to a chosen strategic goal using a systematic managerial framework.
SWOT analyses are particularly helpful in such contexts, as SWOT helps in achieving a particular purpose and pointing out decision options.
The outcomes of a SWOT analysis, in fact, are decision choices and not simply a description of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses refer to matters over which the organisation has control, whereas opportunities and threats refer to external or environmental factors over which the organisation exercise little or no control. Listing strengths and weaknesses gives a stateof-the-art, whilst the opportunities and threats help identify what museums might become in the future (i.e. a prototype virtual museum).
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With a particular goal in mind, (in this case creating a Virtual Museum) the SWOT analysis helps analyse how opportunities can help amplify strengths and reduce weaknesses and how threats might pull or push in the opposite direction.
The Appendix of this report details the questionnaire circulated to partner museums, this along with discussions and interviews forms the data for the following SWOT analysis the purpose of which is to identify the following.
The training needs of the museums in order to create a Virtual Museum
Existing ICT capacity
Internal and external complementarities relevant to business planning.
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Background
The Kyustendil Regional History Museum is a scientific and educational institute with vast experience in discovering, researching, preserving and promoting of the cultural and historical heritage. Тhe territory of its cultural activities covers all of the ninth municipalities within the Kyustendil Region.
The history of the museum activities started in the middle of the 19th century and as a town institution it was founded in December 1897 as a museum collection at the
Pedagogical school. It was the first one in Southwestern Bulgaria and the third within the country; in 1907 a second museum opened its gate as a part of the local cultural club
"Bratstvo". Since August 6th, 1944 it has developed into a town museum with a gallery and since 1960 it is Province Historic Museum.
Since 1992 it is called "Academician Jordan Ivanov", after the name of the great Bulgarian scholar.
By ordinance № 153 issued on July 28, 2000 it is transformed in Regional History Museum with the site in Kyustendil.
Regional History Museum “Academician Jordan Ivanov” is a municipal cultural institution, a corporate body with an independent budget. According to its profile the museum is historical with the following departments:
 Archeology (Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages)
 Numismatic
 Ethnology
 Folklore
 History of the Bulgarian lands (15th –19th century)
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 New and Modern History
 Intangible monuments of culture
 Library and Scientific Archives
 Atelier for conservation and restoration work
 Photo atelier
 Publisher’s section
The Museum has four permanent expositions, and its funds are over 100 000 exhibits.
The basic collections are:
 Prehistoric vessels and idol plastics
 Original finds from Thracian mounds
 Antique bronzes and marble plastics
 Ornaments
 Numismatic collection
Since 2000, the number of visitors (which are, mainly, local students), has increased, as detailed as shown in table 1:
Year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Table 1 – Number of visitors per year
Visitors
11 638
12 212
13 112
15 324
16 940
18 820
16 424
17 624
Year
2000
Foreigners
294
Bulgarian
11 344
Students
4954
Adult
3528
Young people
2863
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2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
220
210
700
960
1 027
730
731
11 992
12 902
14 624
15 980
17 793
15 694
16 893
Table 2 – Composition of the audience per year
5297
5922
6775
7479
8249
7350
7759
3642
3906
4365
4788
5054
4685
4815
3053
3073
3484
3713
4490
3659
4319
35 people are currently working at the Museum; in particular, the Museum staff is composed by 6 Archeologists, 1 Numismatist, 2 Artists, 7 Historians, 3 Restorers, 1
Photographer, 1 Librarian, 2 Ethnographers, 4 Guides, 1 Public Relations, 5
Administratives and 2 Stock keepers.
The Museum total annual costs and turnover are 180.476,00 EUR.
Income from sales of literature and scientific issues amounts at 342.56,00 EUR per year; none of these sales come from e-commerce.
Strengths and weaknesses
The Regional History Museum of Kyustendil has a good web presence and several experiences in implemented projects devoted to the elaboration of museum’s site - www.kyustendil
museum.
primasoft.bg
.
At present time, there are 5 specialists with European computer driving license working at the Museum. Nevertheless, most of the Museum collections is not digitalised.
The Museum, furthermore, is not familiar with the organization of on-line paid services and it is not linked to broadband.
Concerning the staff, part of it has some competences necessary to do the documentation work, associated with a European Virtual Museum.
Due to the experience in several projects for elaboration of museum’s site, the museum has also sufficient management skills to help run a European Virtual Museum.
Opportunities and threats
The Regional Museum of Kyustendil looks at the web development as a great potential.
In fact, this Museum faces to a European Virtual product with the following characteristics:
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Presenting and promoting the variable culture and historic heritage to the common public introducing not only each national specific features but also the common European origin;
Contributing to develop a tourist net connecting a route of sites which tourists will be enabled to get to by visiting the Virtual Museum;
Improve specialists’ capacity and enriching their experience in working on joint projects using the modern technologies;
Gaining visitors new products and services, so as satisfying their cultural interests;
Selling products relative to competitive products from tourist branches that have been already well developed in Bulgaria.
The Museum staff has been working for three years on developing an electronic catalogue of books and digitalizing manuscripts as well as old-printed books from museum’s fund.
A remarkable data is that the Museum staff has been dynamically developing professionally
At present time, the Museum hopes to increase its web services and enlarge its digitalized collection.
Some difficulties could appear in museum’s hard wear and soft wear maintenance and in computer and linguistic preparation of a part of the museum experts, which are both not well developed. Furthermore, the Museum marketing competences to run a European
Virtual Museum are insufficient. Also the competences in teaching and preparing specific material for e-learning needs to be improved.
Regional History Museum "Academician Jordan Ivanov" SWOT summary and conclusions
In the process of migrating to the Virtual Market, the Regional Museum of Kyustendil seems to have a strong position, due also to the general interest for Virtual Museums in
Bulgaria and to the recent rapid growth of similar products in the country.
The Museum is very interested in developing its web presence and has already begun to digitalize part of its collection, but need to train its staff in order to guarantee the maintenance of a dynamic Virtual product.
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Furthermore, it has to be stressed the lack of ITCs internal specialists as well as experts devoted to the elaboration of pedagogical contents of a Virtual Museum.
Strengths
 Good web presence
 Web site available in 2 languages
 Strong experience in the research area
 Several experiences in projects related to digitalizing museum items and in creating the
Museum web site
 Collection partially digitalized
 Several multimedia products available (CD, DVD)
 High number of visitors
Opportunities
 Good experience in cataloguing, copying and archiving which could easily migrate in the virtual museum market
 Strong scientific preparation of the experts and good documentation experience
 Dynamic and rapid professional development of the staff
Weaknesses
 Web presence externally controlled
 Web site structure needing to be improved
 No specific staff specialized in preparing specific pedagogic museum
 Little internal ITC competences
Threats
 Virtual market not developed due also to the Bulgarian legislation
 Staff needing to be trained in hard wear and soft wear maintenance
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(
The Civic Museums of Pitigliano are made by: the Civic Archaeological Museum of the
Etruscan Civilization, and The open-air Archaeological Museum “A. Manzi”.
The Civic Museums of Pitigliano are municipality owned Istitutions, with annual total costs of € 60.000; the Museums income from sales is € 5.000, none of which comes from ecommerce.
The Civic Museum of the Etruscan Civilization
The Civic Museum of the Etruscan Civilization holds artifacts from Etruscan Civilization dating back to the 7th- 6th centuries b.C, found during the excavations at the Poggio Buco necropolis.
In 1864 it was already existing an Antiquarium, collecting coins, archaeological items as well as other materials. During the 19 th century the Antiquarium was enriched thanks to several findings from the surrounding area.
Strongly damneged during the last world war, it was re-opened in 1995, when the
Municipality received the donation of the Vaselli collection, with items from the Poggio
Buco Necropoli.
The exposition has been completely renewed in 1999.
The open-air Archaeological Museum “A. Manzi”
The Open-air Archaeological Museum was born with a strong educational valence, with the aim of improve the cultural and historical heritage of the region.
The new archaeological area allows visitors to fully become engrossed in the history of the place; it is possible to walk in the living city to learn about the different phases of the urban settlements, from the protohistoric village of the Bronze Age, to the Etruscan city.
It is also possible to visit the Etruscan necropolis of the Gradone.
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The Civic Museums of Pitigliano made together, between 2006 and 2007, about 5000 visitors per year, mainly adult people, both international and national. The staff is composed by 2 ticket sellers.
The Museums don’t have an independent web site; their home page, available at the address www.archeologiatoscana.it
, is hosted in the web site of the Association for the
Archaeological Museums of Tuscany.
Strengths and weaknesses
Among the most important elements that could represent a point of weakness of this
Museum there is the lack of digital products. Furthermore, its web presence needs to be strengthened.In particular, the Museum staff needs to be trained for what concerns ICT skills.
Finally, no specific server is available in the Museum.
Opportunities and threats
The Museum looks to the develop of a European Virtual Museum as a great opportunity to increase its presence and diffuse the knowledge of its big heritage, focusing in particular on the following elements:
 Exchange of common and different points of the cultural heritages of each partner, made available for users who, through the virtual museum website, can receive information, guides, routes and services relating to remote sites involved in the project
 Useful services for the user, like an easy and convenient opportunity to book tickets of the museums and interesting sites, hotels and restaurants, information a tickets for transports
 Selling several products, like useful services (i.e. archaeological/na-naturalistical tour, typical local products, merchandising objects)
 Helping the growth of interest in culture and heritage as well as in travels
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One of the most remarkable threat for the civic Museums of Pitigliano comes from the poor level of ICTs competences of the Museum staff in all the fields involved in the creation and the maintenance of a Virtual Museum, like management skills, web-design competences, as well as skill related to the marketing, the creation of specific pedagogical contents and their communication to virtual visitors.
Also the financial situation of the Museum (which is, currently, running an operating deficit) might be an element of risk.
The civic Museums of Pitigliano SWOT summary and conclusions
The low –level of ICTs skills of the Museum (from the design to the development, the management, the maintenance of a Virtual Museum as well as the competences related to the preparation and communication of pedagogical contents suitable for a virtual audience) professionals together with the lack of resources and a weak web-presence, are among the factors which could obstacle the migration to a Virtual market, as summarized in the following table.
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Strengths



Strong scientific competence
Linked to broadband
International visitors
Opportunities
 Strong scientific competence
 Very important collections which can easily attract the interest of local and international visitors
Weaknesses
 Weak web presence due to the lack of a web site
 Lack of professionals working on the elaboration and communication of educational contents
 ITC competences of the staff need to be improved
Threats
 Staff needing to be trained in running and managing a Virtual
Museum
 Human resources with little ITC competences which should be improved
 Lack of funds
 No relevant experience in joint projects
Background
The Banat Museum is an Institution under the Timis County Council.
With an average of 200.000 visitors per year, the Banat Museum has a significant position for what concerns the number of visitors; its audience is mainly composed by children, students, international students, tourists and researchers.
The total costs of the Museum are € 552176.21; income from sales are € 8850.54
The Banat Museum of Timisoara has developed as an outcome of over a century of evolutions and accumulations of museum patrimony, as well as through the development of envelop sphere of the owned collections.
The birth of the museum collections is due to the initiative of some enthusiastic private collectors, which step by step gains a scientific character, by research and publication of this patrimony, especially through their own scientific magazines.
Although there have been previously known private collections of historic and archaeologic objects in Timisoara, starting with the moment of founding the History and Archaeology
Society, the fast accumulations of valuable objects has made so that the initially received rooms inside the building of the Romano – Catholic Bishopric and the first headquarters in
A. Pacha street, nowadays occupied by the Academy Library, become insufficient for the collections more and more extended.
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At the end of year 1914, the patrimony of the museum was in amount of 60.205 pieces of museum’s patrimony. At that moment, the museum of Timisoara was the only museum institution which presented to the public collections of goods from the natural environment and relics of human activity from the entire Banat.
In 1979, the Banat Museum owned, according to a report of that period director, the following museum patrimony: archeology and history – approximately 500.000 pieces; arts
– approximately 7.000 pieces; ethnography – approximately 9.000 pieces; nature sciences
– approximately 50.000 pieces.
One of the priorities aimed as an objective was also making a permanent exposition that would live up to the high quality level of the owned patrimony.
During the last years, after the Banat Museum has been taken over by Timis County
Council, as a consequence of the development of preoccupations of each section in order to vary the cultural offer, the museum has suffered important reorganizations.
At the Banat Museum it is possible to visit several exhibitions:
 Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic
 Neolithic, the Neolithic Sanctuary from Parţa
 Bronze Age
 Iron Age (north Thracians and Gaeto-Dacians)
 Daco – Roman Age (Roman Dacia, daco-romanity)
 Prefeudal and Medieval Age
 Modern and Contemporary Age
 Nature sciences
 The flora and fauna of Banat
 Evolution of man
 Evolution of plants and animals
 Mineralogy
 Collection of rocs and minerals
 Paleontology collection
 Collection of pressed plants (Herbarium)
 Butterfly collection (Lepidoptera)
 Beetle collection (Coleopterans)
 Exotic mollusc collection (Malacology)
 Bird collection (Ornithology)
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The Museum staff is composed by 75 persons among Administratives (lawyer, account manager, human resources personnel), Specialists (like archaeologists, historians, researchers, librarians, restorers, guides) and personnel for the exhibitions.
The Museum is currently being restored, so that some sectors at the moment are closed to the public. The restoration works are also the reason why at the moment the expenses of the Museum are higher than the income.
Within the Museum there will be, at the end of the restoration, a shop which will be externally managed.
Strengths and weaknesses
The Museum has a good team composed by 1 manager, 1 accountant, and several specialists in museography as well as 1 chief of the Department for the organization of the exhibitions, which could work in the Virtual Museum management. Part of the Museum staff (about 20 people) has a good basic Computer preparation, having a EU computer driving licence; furthermore, 4 people working at the Museum have been specifically trained in preparing pedagogic materials.
Furthermore, the Museum professionals have also good competences in cataloguing and archiving material, which could help in migrating to the Virtual market.
The Museum, which has a web site available only in Romanian, has realized several digital products, mainly the archives and some studies have been digitalized.
Opportunities and threats
The Banat Museums looks at a European Virtual Museum being easy accessible, interactive, competitive, and with the following characteristics:
 Promoting the real museum and assuring interactivity
 Focused on new services, which a real museum cannot provide
 Devoted to professors, students, researchers, tourism agencies
A point of strength for the Banat Museum is the availability of professionals with management, design and development competences as well as marketing skills.
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Other relevant factors are the strong experience in archaeology, in all the museum activities as well as in the commitment to continued professional development of the staff, with about 2-3 specialisation program per year.
The Museum is currently running an operating deficit, also due to the costs for the restorations of the Museum.
A point of weakness lies on the necessity of a specific training in ICT for the Museum staff.
The Banat Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
With an articulated staff including several experts in museography and well trained professionals devoted to the elaboration of pedagogical materials, and with a staff having the competences needed for running and managing a Virtual Museum, The Banat
Museum has a quite strong position, which needs to further strengthen in order to develop some ICT skills requested by a Virtual Museum, such as contents creation and communication, as well as management of a Virtual product.
Strengths
 Strong scientific competence
 Strong experience in the organization of exhibitions and cultural events
 Part of the archive has been digitalized
 Very articulated staff
 Staff trained in the preparation of pedagogical materials
Opportunities
 Several experience in archiving and cataloguing material which can help in migrating to a Virtual Museum
 Design and development competences of the staff which can help in migrating to a Virtual
Museum
Weaknesses
 Web site available only in Romanian
 ITC competence of the staff need to be further improved
 The Museum is not involved in any projects other than the F-MU.S.EU.M. project
Threats
 No relevant experience in joint projects
 Staff needing to be trained in ICTs
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Background
The Regional Museum of History of Veliko Tarnovo is a municipally owned Museum, with a budget that is annually appointed by the Ministry of Culture and the municipality. All the
Museum incomes go to the Municipality budget.
The Museum had 307.050 visitors in 2007, but statistics about the composition of this audience are not available.
Established in 1871, the Museum performed its first exhibition in 1914.
Since 1945 the museum is declared as State Museum.
The Regional Museum of History consists of the following museums:
 Museum of Archaeology
 Museum Renessaince and Constituent assembly
 Museum of Etnography
 New and Recent history museum
 Prison-museum
 Museum Konstatsalieva house - village of Arbanassi
 House museum of P.R. Slavejkov and the following sites
 Archaeological preserve - NIKOPOLIS AD ISTRUM
 Archaeological preserve Carevec
 Medieval chuerch St Peter and Paul - Veliko Tarnovo
 Medieval chuerch St. Demetrius of Salonika - Veliko Tarnovo
 Medieval chuerch St George - Veliko Tarnovo
 Late Medieval chuerch Nativity of Chist - Arbanassi
 Late Medieval chuerch St. Archangels Michail and Gabriel - Arbanassi
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and three more Late Medieval churches in - Arbanassi
The Museum of Archaeology has four main collections:
 Prehistory
 Antiquity
 Medieval
 Coinage
The Museum staff is composed by 105 people, including Administratives, Curators,
Guides, Keepers, Restaurateurs and Ticket sellers.
Strengths and weaknesses
The Regional Museum of History of Veliko Tarnovo needs to increase the competences of its staff from the point of view of the skills needed for building, running and maintaining a
Virtual Museum, with particular focus on:
 Web Design and Develop competences
 Management skills needed to run and maintain a virtual product
 Elaboration and management of specific educational contents
 Training focused on the achievement of communication skills, specifically devoted to a virtual audience
Opportunities and threats
For this Museum, the European Virtual Museum should be:
 With opened and web-based database
 Meant for students, scholars and tourists
 Realized with a broadband access
 E-learning oriented
 Devoted to the growth of interest in culture, heritage as well as tourism
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A lack of funds, due to the legal status of the Museum, is the most remarkable threat which could affect the process of migrating to a Virtual market.
SWOT summary and conclusions
Due to the lack of funds, scarce ICT, educational and management competences of the staff, the Regional Museum of History of Veliko Tarnovo has a rather weak position and needs to strengthen in several fields.
Strengths
 Strong scientific competences
 High number of visitors
Opportunities
 Strong academic experience
Weaknesses
 Web site available only in Bulgarian
 No staff specialized in preparing specific pedagogic material and in communicating with a virtual audience
 Little internal ITCs competence
Threats
 Staff needing to be trained in running and managing a Virtual Museum
 Human resources with little ITCs competences
 Lack of funds
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Background
The Ruse Regional History Museum is a legal entity institution, municipality owned and constituted after the Culture Development and Protection Law.
The Ruse Museum has a staff composed by 28 people: 1 chief; 13 experts; 3 administrators; 1 book-keeper; 1 driver; 1 librarian; 4 tourist guides; 4 subsidiary staff.
The new exposition of the Museum opened the doors in autumn 2007.
The Museum collection is composed by:
 Artefacts from prehistoric period (mainly from Rousse sity settlement)
 Antiquity (mainly from Thracian tumulus; fortress Sexaginta Prista and Yatrus),
 Middle Age (mainly from Cherven fortress) and Modern times items.
The most important part of the collection is the Thracian Treasure from Borovo, wellknown in all the World
In 2007 the Museum had 32.915 visitors, mainly local people, as shown in table 3:
KIND OF VISITORS FOR 2007 NUMBER
Foreigners
Bulgarian
Students
Adults
Official guests
10.971
11.344
6.933
9.084
5.927
Table 3 – Composition of the audience for 2007
22

The Museum current incomes have been, in 2007, 66.5 % from museum municipal budget, while the 33.5 % came from own income.
The Museum has no legal right to trade, but it has the right to sell some of the museum’s products.
The Museum budget and total costs was 155. 772,00 Euros for 2007, while income from sales of artefacts was 2.910,00 Euros. No income comes from ecommerce.
Strengths and weaknesses
At present time, the Ruse Regional History Museum has not yet developed any digital product. Furthermore, it has to be noted that no server is available at the museum.
The web site realized is available only in Bulgarian at the address www.museumruse.com
.
The Museum has 2 specialists with European Computer driving license; about the educational staff, a point that needs to be stressed is that in the Museum is not available any specific department or staff devoted to the elaboration of pedagogic materials, whereas a point of strength is that the Museum has sufficient management competences to help run a European Virtual Museum. Furthermore, the staff of the Museum has several experiences in joint projects, thanks to the work done during the elaboration of the
Museum web site.
Opportunities and threats
The Ruse Museum looks at a European Virtual Museum having the following characteristics:
 Presenting and promoting the variable culture and historic heritage to the common people
 Contributing to the development of local tourism
Some difficulties in running and maintaining a Virtual Museum for the Ruse Regional
Museum could appear in the soft wear maintenance.
Other threats come from the scarce computer and linguistic preparation of a considerable part of the museum experts, which are, definitely, not properly trained in those fields.
23

Furthermore, no specific design and development competences are available among the
Museum staff; while the Museum professionals have several competences in cataloguing, copying and archiving materials and in the documentation work –which could help in migrating to a Virtual Museum-, the staff has no practical experience or specific training to communicate with virtual audience and to manage a Virtual Museum.
Also the competences in creating specific contents at high pedagogic standards need to be developed.
The Ruse Regional History Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
With a little experience in the creation of its web site, the Ruse Museum has a rather weak position, due, in particular, to the scarce ITCs preparation of its staff as well for the lack of consistent funds to train its team; another element which can weaken the position of this
Museum is the scarce linguistic preparation of its staff.
Furthermore, the Educational department needs to be trained with particular focus to the
Virtual visitors’ needs, as well as the communication and content creation skills of the
Museum staff, which need to be improved.
Strengths
 High number of visitors
 Web site available
 Strong experience in the research area
 Good management competences
Opportunities
 Good experience in cataloguing, copying and archiving materials, which could help to easily migrate to the virtual market
Weaknesses
 Web site available only in
Bulgarian
 Collection not digitalized
 No staff specialized in preparing specific pedagogic material, in communicating and creating educational contents
 Little internal ITC competence
Threats
 Staff needing to be trained in hard wear and soft wear maintenance
 Human resources to be properly trained from the point of view of the technical and linguistic competences
 Lack of relevant funds
24

Background
The Fiora Valley Prehistory and Protohistory Museum of Manciano is a municipality owned
Institution, documenting the life in the valley before of the Etruscan civilization, from the
Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. Most of the Museum collection come from graves.
The Museum is devoted to the Fiora Valley territory, from the most ancient settlements of the Valley, dating back to a half million of years ago (lithic instruments from Montauto-
Vulci), to findings from Paleolithic Age (findings from Monte Amiata).
The Neolithic findings come from Vacasio and Poggio Lucio (Pitigliano) as well as from
Poderi del Bufalo (Manciano). Other remarkable findings are from the Copper Age.
The Museum, whose audience is mostly international, in 2007 received 1727 visitors, while visitors for the Ciacci Collection were 1098.
The Museum staff is made of 1 ticket seller, 1 official guide; the Museum annual total costs are € 30.000, while income from sales of artifact is € 3.500; none of these comes from ecommerce.
Strengths and weaknesses
The position of the Prehistory and Protohistory Museum of Manciano is rather weak, because of the low level of ICT competences of its staff, for the absence of any kind of digital products as well as for the lack of a web site.
Furthermore, there is not any professional, within the Museum, with a Computer driving license or any other high-level computer skills.
The Museum is, nevertheless, strong in the scientific preparation of its staff, and has a significant experience in cataloguing.
Opportunities and threats
As stated about the Pitigliano Civic Museums and for the Farnese Museum, also for the
Prehistory and Protohistory Museum of Manciano one of the most relevant threat lies on the low level of ICT competences as well as the lack of specific competences of the
Museum staff in those fields involved in the creation and the maintenance of a Virtual
Museum (e.g. management skills, design competences, as well as skill related to the
25

marketing, the creation of specific pedagogical contents and their communication to virtual visitors).
The financial situation of the Museum might be a factor of risk.
The Fiora Valley Prehistory and Protohistory Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
The lack of skills needed for creating a Virtual Museum, together with a weak web presence are among the factors which could obstacle the migration to a Virtual market, as shown in the following table.
Strengths
 Strong scientific competence
 Linked to broadband
 High number of international visitors
Weaknesses
 No significant web presence
 No staff with specific skills in elaborating and communicating educational contents
 Little ITC competences of the staff
Opportunities
 Experience in cataloguing which could help in migrating to a virtual product
Threats
 Staff not prepared in running and managing a Virtual Museum
 Human resources with any ITC competences
 Lack of funds
 No relevant experience in joint projects
26

Background
Estabilished in 1990, the Museum, dedicated to the archeologist F. R. Vonwiller, holds findings coming from the proto-historic site of Nova Springs, from the excavations of a late-
Etruscan site as well as Medieval and Renaissance materials from the historical centre of
Farnese. The new setting of the Museum has been done in 2002.
Important findings are also those from the eneolithic necropolis in the neighboroods of
Naviglione and Palombaro; the most important finding is the settlement of Nova Springs, inhabotated between the 11th and the 12th century b.C.
The Museum also houses a Centre for the visits of the Natural Reserve of the Lamone wood and the Centre for Prehistory and Archaeology Studies.
The museum is municipality owned; its annual total costs are € 30.000, while its income from sales of artifacts is € 3.500; none of this income comes from ecommerce.
The audience of the Museum, which in 2007 received 1.359 visitors, is mainly composed by adult people, both international and national.
The Museum staff is composed by 1 ticket sellers.
Strengths and weaknesses
The position of the Farnese Civic Museum is currently weak, due to the low level of ICTs preparation of its staff, to the lack of any digital products. There is not any professional, within the Museum, with a Computer driving license or any other high-level computer skills.
The Museum doesn’t have an indipendent web site; its web page, available at the address www.archeologiatoscana.it
, is hosted in the web site of the Association for the
Archaeological Museums of Tuscany.
Opportunities and threats
The low level of ICTs skills of the Museum staff in all the fields that are involved in the creation and the maintenance of a Virtual Museum (e.g. management skills, design competences, as well as skill related to the marketing, the creation of specific pedagogical contents and their communication to virtual visitors) is the major problem and the most relevant threat for this Museum.
27

Also the financial situation of the Museum might be a factor of risk.
Nevertheless, the Museum looks to the development of a Virtual Museum as a great opportunity, looking at a product focused on the following elements:
 Exchange of common and different points of the cultural heritages of each partner, made available for users who, through the virtual museum website, can receive information, guides, routes and services relating to remote sites involved in the project
 Useful services to the user, such as an easy and convenient opportunity to book tickets of the museums and interesting sites of the territory, hotels and restaurants, information a tickets for transports
 Selling several products, like useful services (i.e. archaeological/na-
 turalistical tour, typical local products, merchandising objects)
 Helping the growth of interest in culture and heritage as well as in travels
The F. R. Vonwiller Civic Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
The low –level of skills of the Museum professionals in the fields involved in building a
Virtual Museum (from design to development, management, maintenance, skills, competences related to the preparation and communication of pedagogical contents suitable for a virtual audience) together with a weak web presence are among the factors which could obstacle the migration to a Virtual market, as summarized in the following table.
28

Strengths


Strong scientific competence
Linked to broadband
Opportunities
 Strong scientific preparation of the staff
Weaknesses
 Weak web presence
 No staff with specific skills in elaborating and communicating educational contents
 ITCs competences of the
Museum staff needing to be increased
Threats
 Staff not prepared in running and managing a Virtual
Museum
 Human resources with any ITC competences
 Lack of funds
 No relevant experience in joint projects
29

Background
The Brukenthal Museum is a governmental Institution, hosting collections of:
 Numismatics: about 60,000 Greek and Roman, medieval-Hungarian, Transylvanian and German coins
 Archaeology: 39,000 items and further 82,000 fragments of artefacts
 Decorative art items: about 14,000 items
 Arms and armours: 1,900 pieces
 Seals and prints
 Decorations and medals
 Romanian bills
 Textiles
The Museum departments are:
 Prehistoric and Old archaeology
 Medieval archaeology
 Seals and prints
 Carl Engber – collector and bibliophile
 From the history of Sibiu
 Medals and Decorations
 Giulds from Sibiu
 The numismatic Cabinet
 Arms and armours
 The National and Cultural Movement in Transylvania in Modern Times
 The Ancient and Medieval Lapidary
The Museum has an average of 250.000 visitors per year, of whom 4440% are students, and 60% are adults.
30

The Brukenthal Museum 168 employees, distribuited as follows:
 19% curators
 5% conservators
 13% restorers
 5% researchers
 29% administrative personal
 29% others
Strengths and weaknesses
The Museum has a good web site, available in Romanian, English and German and providing access to general information about the Museum (collections, history, etc.) as well a several external links (European, American and Canadian libraries and organizations, International organizations, etc.).
The Museum, furthermore, is linked to broadband and has 3 servers.
The staff, in which there are 1 person with a European computer driving license and 2 people specifically trained in preparing pedagogical materials, has some experience in digitalising materials.
The Museum is strong in publishing, cataloguing and describing items and is committed to professional development, with particular focus on the improvement of the internal network and the training of the staff.
Opportunities and threats
From previous experiences made by the Museum, it has appeared the necessity of a team trained in the digitalisation of the materials, the improvement of the realized portal, as well as the lack of professionals devoted to the quality control.
The competences in virtual merchandising are missing; furthermore, it is necessary to increase the computer skills of the staff.
Some field in which the Museum should strengthen are professional photographs, development of professional soft wares, servers and e-commerce platforms.
31

The Museum looks at the development of a European Virtual Museum as a huge resource to improve the quality of the services to the public, also opening new doors to the tourism sector.
The idea of the European Virtual Museum is a product with the following characteristics:
 Virtual-Reality based
 Easy accessible and user-friendly
 Showing paintings, pictures of the artefacts as well as educational movies
 Devoted to people interested in art, and to public and private Institutions as well as educational Institutions.
The Brukenthal National Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
With a very good web presence (the web site is available is 3 languages and provides access to several information about the museum) and a huge and important collection, the
Brukenthal Museum has a strong position, which, nevertheless, risks to be weakened because of the scarce ICTs competences of the museum staff .
The already started process of digitalisation of the collection can be further improved thanks to the participation to a joint project devoted to increase the virtual presence of the
Museum.
Strengths
 Very good web presence (web site available in three languages and realized with a good graphic)
 Huge collection
 Strong scientific competence
 Experience in the digitalization of materials
 Good level of preparation of the staff in the preparation of pedagogical materials
 Management, design and development competences of the staff
Opportunities
 Experience in cataloguing material which can help migrating to a Virtual
Museum
 Good management experience
 Some design and development competences which can be useful for migrating to a virtual product
Weaknesses
 ITCs competences of the staff could be improved
 No practical experience in the Virtual merchandising
 Lack of tools as a professional photographic laboratory
Threats
 No relevant experience in joint projects
 ICTs competences of the staff to be increased
32

33

The Deva Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization is an Institution owned by the
Government.
The museum is housed in the 17th century Magna Curia Palace, built in 1621 under the authority of Prince (Voivode) Gabor Bethlen.
The palace is located at the foot of the citadel hill, next to a small park.
The Museum holds collections of:
 Archaeology, including prehistoric, Dacian, Roman, pre-mediaeval, and early mediaeval items
 Roman reliefs from Ulpia Traiana and Micia, like mining tools, smith's workshop, medical instruments, bronze pieces
 Numismatics
 History, fine arts, decorative art
 Romanian and foreign antique books
 Weapons
 Ethnography (costumes, tools, pottery of Botiza, glass icons)
 Natural sciences (botanics, paleontology, malacology, entomology, etc.)
 Library (40,000 vols.)
The Museum has a staff of 55 people, and is mainly composed by scientific experts, like
Curators, Restoration experts, Librarians, Researchers.
Among the professionals, there are also 2 Analyst-programmers and 1 on-line publication editor.
34

Group number
201
DEVA MUSEUM VISITORS
Individuals in individuals Paying groups
2.004
4.034
Table 4 – Visitors to the Deva museum for year 2007
1.993
Free
4.045
YEAR 2007
Foreigners 288
Romanians
Students
8-18 years
19-30 years
5.750
6.933
1.373
3.102
1.373
Over 31 years 1.563
students
Intellectuals
Others
Local area
Tourists
TOTAL
3.726
1.524
788
4.357
1.681
6.038
Table 5 – Number, age and provenance of the Deva Museum visitors
Strengths and weaknesses
The Deva Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization has a web site meant to be available in several languages (Romanian, German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese,
Portuguese, Chinese, Korean); at present time, only four languages (Romanian, German,
English and French) are available.
35

The web site provides access to several information about the Museum collections and organization.
It is remarkable the presence of many links to other web sites devoted to Romanian archaeology, museums and Institutions.
The Museum is strong in publishing, cataloguing and describing items and is committed to professional development, with particular focus on the improvement of the internal network and on the training of the staff, but has several problems concerning the lack of human resources, especially with ICTs skills: within the museum, in fact, there is only 1 person owning a European computer driving license, while no professional trained in the elaboration, and communication of pedagogical contents is available.
The competences in virtual merchandising as well as in the elaboration and communication of educational contents are missing; other fields in which the Museum should strengthen are professional photographs, development of professional soft wares, servers and e-commerce platforms.
Opportunities and threats
One of the main threats for this Museum is the lack of experience in the management of a
Virtual Museum and the lack of professionals skilled in ICTs. Generally speaking, the computer skills of the staff need to be implemented. The lack of funds and of human resources is also a problem.
The Museum, nevertheless, looks to the development of a European Virtual Museum as a huge potentiality to increase its visibility and improve its services to the public.
According to the Museum idea of the European Virtual Museum, it should be:
 Virtual-Reality based
 Easy accessible and user-friendly
 Showing paintings, pictures of the artefacts as well as educational movies
 Devoted to people interested in art, and to public and private institutions as well as education institutions
36

The Deva Museum SWOT summary and conclusions
The position of the Deva Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization could be a strong one, proving that it will be able to train its professionals in order to make them achieve the competences needed for migrating to a Virtual Museum.
Nevertheless, the Museum looks to the Virtual Museum as a huge potential and has a very positive, dynamic vision of the European Virtual Museum, which should provide new services and sell new products.
Strengths
 Good web presence
 Web site with a user friendly structure
 Huge and important collection
 Strong scientific competence
 Experience in the digitalization of materials
Opportunities
 Experience in cataloguing material which can help in migrating to a
Virtual Museum
Weaknesses
 Little ITC competence
 Lack of staff skilled in communicating with a virtual audience
 Lack of tool like a professional photographic laboratory
 Lack of management, design and development competences of the staff
Threats
 Staff needing to be trained in ICTs
 Lack of human resources
 Not linked to broadband
 Lack of funds
37

This report analysed the characteristics and the potentialities of nine European Museum, participating in the F-MU.S.EU.M. Project to migrate to a Virtual Museum.
The elaboration of the questionnaires received, made through by a SWOT analysis, shows a situation which is different from one museum to another, even if, definitely, it is possible to point out several elements, common to the situation of all the involved museums and of capital importance for the possibility for these Museums to migrate to the virtual market.
The Regional History Museum of Kyustendil, the Banat Museum and the Brukenthal
Museum have a position stronger than the other participating Museums and seem to have more chances to easily migrate to a Virtual Museum, whilst other Museums, like the
Regional Museum of History of Veliko Tarnovo and the three Italian Museums might face some more difficulties in doing that.
The analysis reveals that all the nine Museums, which in the majority of the cases have a local audiece, need to increase ITCs competences of their staff.
In most cases, the web presence is not of high level, with web sites available only in the local language and, furthermore, externally controlled and managed.
It is also to be stressed the need for these local Museum s to improve or develop new services and competences, as the e-commerce, the virtual merchandising, and increase its web presence so as increasing their audience and promoting its huge heritage.
The other external elements of weakness and threats for all the Museums come, in order of importance, from:
 Lack of human resources
 Lack of funds
 Low level of linguistic competences of the staff
Looking, in particular, to the process of migrating to a Virtual Museum, the position of the participating museums is weakened by the lack of professional profiles skilled in the following fields:
 Elaboration of pedagogical contents for a virtual audience
 Creation of specific cultural contents suitable for a virtual product
38

 Communication of cultural contents to a virtual audience
 Web expertise (with particular focus on the web design and development)
Special attention, therefore, has to be given to a training action devoted to the following key-roles and competences, needed for creating, running and maintaining a Virtual
Museum:
 E-learning expertise
 Web expertise
 Content creation
 Communication expertise
Achieving these competences and expertises must be considered as a basic action to make the nine participating museum migrating to the virtual market, so as increasing their visibility, improving the quality of their services and developing new products for virtual and actual visitors.
39

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
The general objective of the European
Virtual Museum is to present and promote the variable culture and historic heritage to the common public introducing not only each national specific features but also the common European origin.
The European Virtual Museum will contribute to develop a tourist net connecting “imaginarily” a route of sites which tourists will be enabled to get to by visiting the virtual museum.
At the end but not on the last place, the work on developing and elaborating the
European Virtual Museum will improve specialists’ capacity and will enrich their experience in working on joint projects using the modern technologies. Will increase the interest to each of the museums and to their images.
The visitors will gain new products and services and high contentedness in satisfying their cultural interests.
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
In Bulgaria up to now the virtual museum market has not been developed yet.
Particularly, the Regional History Museum
40

doesn’t propose any virtual market. The key requirements of future virtual market are high quality, alteration of the
Legislation in order to be increased each museum’s interest to develop virtual market and to propose products for sale through internet. Except of the National
Museums and the Varna Regional History
Museum, all other Regional Museums in
Bulgaria grant their incomes to the
Municipalities’ Budgets.
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
Yes, it is. As a whole, the Intellectual
Property Law and other relative properties, being coordinated with the
European Legislation, protect the museum institution content.
352 980 BGN for 2006 or 180 476 EUR.
352 980 BGN for 2006 or 180 476 EUR.
We haven’t any separately constituted trading arm. The Regional History
Museum is a legal entity institution constituted after the Culture Development
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
an Protection Law.
Income from sales of literature and scientific issues - 670,00 BGN (342.56
EUR).
There are no sale from ecommerce.
The virtual museum will include materials from museum partners’ collections which are detailed photographed and presented three-dimensionally. Beside detailed description of every exhibit there will be published articles-interpretations searching for parallels on European level.
41

What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
It makes the Project extremely interesting and useful for the archeologists and historians of Prehistory and also fro the common European auditory. Its curiosity to its own original roots will be satisfy through the high-quality photos, video materials and the available information and through interpretation of the whole virtual museum’s contents in different languages.
The main specific support infrastructure and service is connected with soft wear elaboration and consulting the competency of ITP specialists.
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
The unique selling points of the European
Virtual Museum’s products have to be relative to their competitive products from the other tourist branches that have been already well developed in Bulgaria – sea and winter tourism with centers like Varna and Bansko, culture tourism with the popular centers in Bulgaria - Veliko
Turnovo Museum, Perperikon, the Valley of Thracian Kings, etc.
What are main competitive products already on the market?
I can’t point concrete competitive products on the market but as a whole, recently, on the National Tourist Markets and on
Culture Tourism Markets in the town of
Veliko Turnovo more and more public and non-government organizations present and promote multimedia products. But
42

Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
generally, they can not be a competition for European Virtual Museum.
Museum’s web site - 1200 EUR.
Multimedia product “Region of Kyustendil
– A Cross Road of 8 Thousand Years of
History and Culture” – 1.00 EUR per number.
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
I can not give any pricing model at this moment.
I propose the following model:
During the first year of its establishment promotional access to the product except of: downloading and using of museum materials – labels, banners, etc. for trading and advertising purposes., as well as using them for publication in specialized scientific issues without the given permission by the author of the primary publication.
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
Elaborating of networks of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market is the variant that is preferred but it will take much time.
I am not familiar with the organization of on-line paid services. Probably specialized internet trading organizations after contracting I might seek for.
43

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
Your answer …………….
It is an exchange of common and different points of the cultural heritages of each partner, made available for users who, through the virtual museum website, can receive information, guides, routes and services relating to remote sites involved in the project.
To provide useful services to the user, such as an easy and convenient opportunity to book tickets of the museums and interesting sites of the territory, hotels and restaurants, information a tickets for transports.
yes none
€ 60.000
no
€ 5.000
none
Useful services (i.e. archaeological/naturalistical tour, typical local products, merchandising objects.
44

What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
Companies and public sectors specialized in the products mentioned above.
The network of EVMuseum all the products mentioned above no
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
???
no no network of museums no
45

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law?
If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the European Virtual
Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts (i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the European Virtual Museum will sell?
Your answer …………….
I think it is a modern solution in promoting the museum and in assuring interactivity.
Easy access, interactivity, competitive products.
No. Images and texts (some being the results of long and expensive research).
552176.21 euro
No
8850.54 euro
None, as we have no artefacts.
It is a product compatible with the actual man, with his searches and expectations
Knowledges of design, management, specialty knowledges.
What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
Product authorized by a scientific group/ authority.
None
None
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
None
46

Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge
The model of Britannic encyclopaedia, reading the beginning (resume) and the rest is counter cost.
We don’t have but we are interested.
per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual
Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
I think a network of museums can do that, having employees specialized in the necessary fields.
We don’t need.
47

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
Your answer …………….
Opened web-based database with useful illustrations.
Not totally protected.
N/A
N/A
NO – we do not have the rights to trade
NONE
None
Web based database, accessible by password, electronically charged
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
48

Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
none
49

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
Your answer …………….
To present and promote the variable culture and historic heritage to the common public. The European Virtual
Museum will contribute to develop a tourist net connecting “imaginarily” a route of sites which tourists will be enabled to get to by visiting the virtual museum.
The key requirements of future virtual market are high quality, alteration of the
Legislation in order to be increased each museum’s interest to develop virtual market and to propose products for sale through internet.
Yes, it is.
458.206 BGN for 2007
458.206 BGN for 2007
We haven’t any separately constituted trading arm.
5814.92 BGN for 2007
There are no sale from ecommerce.
Well photographed, detailed described materials from museum partners’ collections, whit published articles-
50

What specific support infrastructure and interpretations.
Support of ITP specialists.
services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
The unique selling points of the European
Virtual Museum’s products have to be relative to their competitive products from the other tourist branches that have been already well developed in Bulgaria – sea and winter tourism.
I can’t point concrete competitive products on the market.
No I can’t, because, we don’t have digital product yet.
What costs do you think you will incur to I can’t give pricing model at this moment.
enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
I can not give any pricing model at this moment.
I’m thinking that during the first year (or two years) of its establishment must be limited promotional access to the product of the virtual museum.
Elaborating of networks of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market is the variant that is preferred but it will take much time.
I am not able to point any partners at the moment.
51

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
Your answer …………….
It is an exchange of common and different points of the cultural heritages of each partner, made available for users who, through the virtual museum website, can receive information, guides, routes and services relating to remote sites involved in the project.
To provide useful services to the user, such as an easy and convenient opportunity to book tickets of the museums and interesting sites of the territory, hotels and restaurants, information a tickets for transports.
yes none
€ 30.000
no
€ 3.500
none
Useful services (i.e. archaeological/naturalistical tour, typical local products, merchandising objects.
52

What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
Companies and public sectors specialized in the products mentioned above.
The network of EVMuseum all the products mentioned above no
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
no no network of museums no
53

Background and vision
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
Your answer …………….
It is an exchange of common and different points of the cultural heritages of each partner, made available for users who, through the virtual museum website, can receive information, guides, routes and services relating to remote sites involved in the project.
To provide useful services to the user, such as an easy and convenient opportunity to book tickets of the museums and interesting sites of the territory, hotels and restaurants, information a tickets for transports.
yes none
€ 30.000
no
€ 3.500
none
Useful services (i.e. archaeological/naturalistical tour, typical local products, merchandising objects.
54

What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
Companies and public sectors specialized in the products mentioned above.
The network of EVMuseum all the products mentioned above no
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
no no network of museums no
55

Background and vision Easy to use, good resolution, easy to browse (search artefacts)
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Realism, accurate picture, easy download and use.
Legally all images from museum cannot be commercial use without a consent.
-
no
- none
Paintings, artistic pictures of the artefacts, educational movies
E-portal, a digitalisation team, ecommerce, painting printing
56

Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to
Painting reproduction, cost of labour photographing, cost of digital refine, printing or web expose.
Cost of photo mobile laboratory, cost of web portal, printing laboratory content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
Business partner
High technology printing companies
57

Background and vision Easy to use, good resolution, easy to browse (search artefacts)
What is your vision for the European
Virtual Museum?
What are the key requirements of the virtual museum market?
Is your museum’s content totally protected by intellectual property law? If not, can you give examples of items relevant to the
European Virtual Museum that are not protected?
What is your current annual turnover?
What are your current total costs?
Do you have a separately constituted trading arm?
How much income from sales of artefacts
(i.e. not entry charge or cafeteria etc) do you make annually?
How much of these artefact sales are made using ecommerce?
Product and services
Describe how you see the product that the
European Virtual Museum will sell?
What specific support infrastructure and services will be necessary to create this product?
What unique selling points will the
European Virtual Museum’s products have relative to competitive products?
What are main competitive products already on the market?
Realism, accurate picture, easy download and use.
Legally all images from museum cannot be commercial use without a consent.
-
no
- none
Paintings, artistic pictures of the artefacts, educational movies
E-portal, a digitalisation team, ecommerce, painting printing
58

Can you give an example of the cost of creating one digital product?
What costs do you think you will incur to enter the virtual museum market?
Do you have a preferred pricing model for your virtual museum product e.g. some content free others chargeable; viewing free, downloading charged.
Do you have a preferred business model for a virtual museum e.g. outsourcing to
Painting reproduction, cost of labour photographing, cost of digital refine, printing or web expose.
Cost of photo mobile laboratory, cost of web portal, printing laboratory content provider, charge per unit accessed or subscription?
Do you envisage a network of museums taking the European Virtual Museum business to market or will you need business partners?
If you need business partners can you list what types of partners you might seek?
Business partner
High technology printing companies
59